Phoenix
by Evans17
Summary: Marlene was a delicate, glowing songbird who grew into a rough, beautiful phoenix. Sirius loved both sides of her. Written for mystii's challenge at the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges forum. Chapters not all in the same universe.
1. Sapphires

Sapphires

Her eyes, the day he sees her for the first time, are blue, so blue, blue as sapphires.

Later, he understands that it was a spell, it was a joke, it was a dare for the first day of Hogwarts.

But nevertheless, that is the color he will always associate with Marlene.

Sapphire.

When he gets her a ring (she protests and says she will never, ever, marry, she wants to be young and beautiful and untied down until she dies [she wants to die young,] and he says it wasn't an engagement ring anyway, don't be so full of yourself, Marlene Mckinnon [only it sort of was]) it has a sapphire in it.

She asks him why on earth he bought her such a wimpy colored stone, and couldn't he have chosen rubies or onyxes or something like that?

He laughs it off and pretends it doesn't hurt when he sees the ring lying unworn at the bottom of her drawer, years later, after she's gone.

But somewhere, deep inside, a part of him bleeds for the little girl with the spell-colored eyes and the red-gold hair that he saw on Platform Nine and Three Quarters, all those years ago.


	2. Love? What Do I Know About Love?

Love? What do I know about love?

"Love? What do you know about love?"

His words spat back at him are like a slap in the face.  
"Isn't that what you said?" She persists. "Isn't that what you said, when I was thirteen years old and convinced I loved you? When I was fifteen and I slept with you because I was convinced _you loved me back_?" And I said, "I love you," and you said, 'Love? What do I know about love?'"

She takes a deep breath (and Sirius can feel his hackles rise – that is to the say the hackles he would have if he was in dog form) and continues.

"And now, _now_, you come to me and say, oh, Marlene, I love you, and you don't even _remember_ what you did to me. Well, guess what, Sirius? You turned me into the type of person you could love by not loving me. And now... now I don't-"

But she can't finish, she can't say "I don't love you," because Sirius sees it coming and he leaps at her, and then they are kissing, kissing fiercely, kissing like their lives depend on it.

And when, at last, they are forced to pull away in order to breathe, Sirius grins that slow grin of his and the icy shell Marlene has built around her heart melts, just a little bit.

**A/N: So, I had this written yesterday, but my internet failed. (I swear I'm not just making excuses!) I'm going to post the chapter from yesterday (this one) and today's instead.**


	3. Hundreds

Hundreds

"I love you."  
How many times has he said this? How many times has he looked at her and wondered what he did to deserve this? How many?

How many more minutes will he have with her?

He doesn't know.

But later, he will calculate. One hundred minutes, exactly. Then she will leave, and on her way back home (she wouldn't move in with him, no matter how many times he asked) she will be ambushed.

Marlene's family, with whom she has had no contact since she was seventeen, will fall the same night. Every single living being that shares her blood. So will every male human that she has had a relationship with. Cousins, uncles, brothers, parents, second cousins once removed, even muggle boys she went on one date with, Fabian and Gideon Prewett, (she went to Hogsmeade with Gideon and to London with Fabian) _everyone_. (Later, after the betrayal is revealed, Sirius will realize that _someone_ must have been watching her, to be able to do this.)

Everyone but Sirius.

Exactly one hundred people.

And Marlene will fall in death as she was in life, glowing and dark and laughing and cynical and _beautiful_.

So, I know this is kind of weird and not realistic, but I had a little trouble with the prompt. I'm sorry! * ducks rotten fruit * I figured it would be interesting to have an obsessive stalker Peter kill off all of Marlene's old boyfriends, (or get the Death Eaters to do it) while Voldemort is more interested in her family, to prove a point.


	4. Sunshine

Sunshine

If he's honest with himself, completely honest, he has to admit that the day he began loving Marlene Mckinnon was not when she strode into that order meeting, all confident and cool and smelling of cigarettes and lust, like she had just gotten out of bed with some guy to come (which happened to be the truth,) like he always told her. It was that day in third year, the day where she sat with Alice and Mary under the big tree near the lake, and they were teasing the giant squid, and laughing and getting wet, and the sun shone on Marlene, young innocent Marlene, before he broke her, and she was glowing, glowing in the sunshine.

That was why he asked her out, that day. Because he glimpsed something in her that called him, and he wanted it for himself.

But he was self-destructive as a young man, and, two years later, after two years of their rocky, uneven, on-and-off relationship, he got rid of her, almost for good. He broke her that day, and she was never the same again.

He loves his Marlene, dark, dangerous, twisted, but he can't help but regret the Marlene he killed, the bright Marlene, the golden Marlene, the Marlene who shone with sunshine.

As Sirius closes his eyes for the final time, behind his lids, he sees pure golden sunshine, and he knows that she is waiting for him.

Am I back on track with the challenge? Probably not. Weathering the Storm (my precious fic with filledecriture that's not quite ready for the world) eats up my time, as does summer homework and schedule technicalities. I'll do my best though.


	5. Moonlight

Moonlight

Marlene is a princess, a princess of flame, a mix of wind and fire and smoke and darkness.  
She is complicated and hurt and broken and fixed just a little wrong, and she is beautiful and she is tough.

When Sirius sees her, lying there, he hates the moon.

The moonlight illuminates her face, clears it, makes her look delicate, and if there's one thing she never was, it's delicate.

He has always detested moonlight. It illuminated Remus' twisting form when he writhed, and changed, as one tortured.

It was the only light in his room at night, throwing shadows on the walls and frightening him, all alone in the huge, cold room.

It allowed Peter to escape.

But moonlight's worst crime, in Sirius' eyes, is the crime of being the witness, the illuminating light, to Marlene's death, and disfiguring her face in death.


End file.
